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70 self would suffer. He would be discharged—probably by cable—for allowing the mine’s bourgeoning prosperity to go to pieces in such fashion. Another and less lenient and understanding manager would be sent out to take his place. A manager whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as the cause of the whole trouble.

Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great conviction.

Even Kirby’s declaration that the ridiculous strike would be a failure, and that the government would assuredly punish any damage done to the Cabell property, did not serve to impress him. Najib was a Syrian. An idea, once firm-rooted in his mind, was loathe to let itself be torn thence by mere words. Kirby waxed desperate.

“You have wrecked this whole thing!” he stormed. “You got an idiotically wrong slant on what I told you about strikes to-day; and you have ruined us all. Even if you should go down there to the quarters this minute and tell the men that you were mistaken and that the strike is off—you know they wouldn’t believe you. And you know they would go straight ahead with the thing. That’s the Oriental of it. They’d refuse to go on working. And our shipments wouldn’t be delivered. None of the ore for the next shipments would be mined. The men would just hang about, peacefully waiting for the double pay and the half time that you’ve promised them.”

“Of an assuredly, that is true, howadji,” conceded Najib. “They would.”

“They will!” corrected Kirby with grim hopelessness.

“But soon Cabell Effendi will reply to your letter,” went on Najib. “And then the double paying”

“To my letter!” mocked the raging Kirby.

Then he paused, a sudden inspiration smiting him.

“Najib,” he continued after a minute of concentrated thought, “you have sense enough to know one thing: You have sense enough to know you people can’t get that extra pay till I write to Mr. Cabell and demand it for you. There’s not another one of you who can write